Why This Small French Town Has the World’s Best Roses

The French Riviera is generally associated with sun and surf, but this corner of it is famous for being the home of the world’s most coveted flower. We follow parfumeur Fabrice Penot on his quest for the perfect rose.

When is a rose not just a rose? When it’s
Rosa centifolia, an old varietal so highly
scented that it makes the florally obsessed
downright covetous. “It’s a little
fruitier, deeper, and more voluptuous
than any other rose,” says Fabrice Penot,
co-founder of the New York–based
cult perfume line Le Labo, known for its
complex yet clean, single note–inspired
scents. Centifolia’s allure is heightened
by the fact that it’s still grown commercially
in relatively few places: The most
famous is the small town of Grasse on
the French Riviera, where decades of
rising real estate prices have shrunk
thousands of acres of rose fields to just
a few plots. And although the Frenchborn
Penot has traveled around the
world to find inspiration for his perfumes—including
recent trips to Quebec
and China—his favorite pilgrimage
remains the one he makes to Grasse’s
annual Rosa centifolia harvest in May.

divpRose petals
are spread out to
dry, preventing
mold and decay.

Victoria Frolova

An hour’s drive from Monaco, Grasse
is noted for its narrow streets lined with
pink-painted buildings and, thanks to
what some perfumers consider a perfect
microclimate (it’s in a hilly, irrigated area
that’s far enough inland to be protected
from sea breezes), an outsize reputation
as a perfume capital since the late eighteenth
century. Many of the elite French
fragrance houses, including Hermès,
Chanel, and Dior, source their roses and
jasmine here. And while Grasse’s distilleries
can feel a bit touristy—you can visit
them much as you would tasting rooms
during a Napa Valley wine tour—the
rose harvest itself is deeply rooted in a
tradition that began in the Middle Ages,
when the town was filled with tanneries
and roses were harvested to counter
the stench of raw leather. Now, as then,
for three weeks (starting at the end of
April or in May, depending on weather
patterns), the rose fields fill with women who pick the flowers one by one, break
the blooms, and gently place the petals
in bags made from old curtains. They
work from 7 to 10 a.m., and during those
hours, the back roads fill with tourists,
locals, and the perfume-obsessed, all
stopping to witness the age-old ritual.
“It’s quite welcoming and celebratory on
the edges of the fields. Last year someone opened a few bottles of wine,” Penot
says. “And at around eight o’clock, you
start to get a whiff of the roses as the day
warms up.” By the end of the harvest,
the women in Le Labo’s five acres of
fields will have collected 1.5 tons of petals—which will be distilled into just 2.3
liters of precious absolute rose oil, which
can fetch upwards of $280 an ounce.

Penot, who has long used centifolia’s
essence for Le Labo’s signature perfume,
Rose 31 (and who made it the base note
of the fragrances he created to scent
the public spaces in Fairmont hotels
around the world), fondly remembers
his first harvest: “Walking the fields and
smelling the flowers was so magical, I
thought it was a crime that people who
wear perfume couldn’t understand the
soulfulness and passion behind it.” The
appeal of harvest time, he says, isn’t just
for those who love fragrance; it’s for anyone who wants to witness an enduring
French tradition that speaks to the intimate connection between the people and
the land. “When you see generations of
women picking flowers for perfume as
they have for centuries, it feels spiritual
and human.”

The heavenly scented French Riviera town of Grasse during its annual rose harvest.

Ayala Moriel Perfums

Roses in bloom in Grasse.

Ed Wright/Courtesy Fairmont

Le Labo founders Eddie Roschi, left,
and Fabrice Penot, right, in Grasse, chatting with
a visitor from the nearby town of Fayence.

Ed Wright/Courtesy Fairmont

A rose-bedecked fountain in Grasse’s city center.

Igor Josifovic

Picking
Rosa centifolia at Domaine de Manon in Grasse.

Hemis/Getty Images

Rose petals are spread out to dry, preventing mold and decay.

Victoria Frolova

STAY

Le Mas CandilleHoused in an
eighteenth-century
farmhouse, this
intimate hotel
sits on a hilltop
overlooking acres
of fields (blvd.
Clément Rebuffel;
from $365).